Seasons
by Scarabbug
Summary: Seasons change, as do situations. Staying the same would probably do more harm than good, but that doesn’t mean changes are enjoyable. Four drabbles.


**Drabble challenge My own, set for Sarah Frost, apologies, Sarah.) Choose a character. Have that character describe another character. Then have that character describe the next one, and then they describe the next and so on.**

**Involve the four seasons, one season for each. These fics MUST be drabbles around 300 words each. Any genre, any type. Use the word grass in every "ficlet" without it being too obvious.**

Ioriginally thought ofthese four are connected, but if that were the case then it's thinly, with huge time gaps, so it's perhaps better to view them as four entirely separate entities. I thereby reveals my laziest colours in lack of wanting to commit anymore time to binding the four fics together in a more convincing, elaborate fashion.

* * *

_"Spring passes and one remembers one's innocence. Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance. Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence. Winter passes and one remembers one's perseverance." – Yoko Ono_

Chemical Snowflakes. 

'Um…Chuck, what're you doing, mate?'

'Huh? Oh, catching snowflakes on my tongue.'

'…Why do you want to catch snowflakes?' Mark shivers. It's getting cold out here. They only came outside to get away from the Knights' chess match. (Sparx could be pretty dangerous when she was being competitive.)

'Oh, just… I used to do it when I was a kid or something,' Chuck shrugs. 'It's like… always taking a left turn to attack when I come to a bad guy in the Grassy Plains on level ten, dude. Its force of habit.'

Mark watches Chuck ducking to catch a flake. He tries not to smile. 'Force of habit isn't always a good thing though, is it?'

'Why'd you say that?'

'Well, there's a chemical plant over there… how do you know some of it didn't get into the snow?'

Chuck grins at him. Mark kind of likes that, probably because it's real. Chuck's like that. He can't smile unless he means it. It makes a nice change from the "I'm-not-really-okay-kid-but-I-can-try" and "stand-still-so-I-can-annihilate-you" type stares he gets these days.

'I'll take my chances, man. Try it, the snowflakes won't bite. OR poison you,' Chuck adds.

'Chuck, it's just _snow_.'

'Exactly. It won't hurt to try. It's fun.'

'_That's_ what you said about chess.' He points back at the Thunder Tower door. There's the crackling, hissing sound of Sparx blowing up another bishop and Ace complaining.

'This from the guy who had a cyber freaks energy draining tentacle wrapped around his throat last week?' Chuck points out. 'It's not the snow I'd worry about killing you, Mark.'

…He's got a point. Once you work round all the weird stuff Chuck goes on about, he usually does. That or he gets bored with the conversation and they go read comic books.

Mark smiles a little. 'Okay, what the heck…'

He sticks out his tongue. And pulls it back in again a second later, because the snow really DOES taste like chemicals.

* * *

Twenty-Foot Drop. 

'It's cool, dude, it's cool. Everything's cool!'

Okay, so everything's NOT cool, but she doesn't need to know that. Chuck figures she's hanging… what? Twenty feet or so up in the air right now? Yeah, he'd guess about that. Apparently she couldn't see for all the leaves when she flew through the trees surrounding the back of the college campus. And the Flash is all smashed up after leaving her up there, hanging from the top ledge of the building, so it won't be going back for her. and even Sparx can't jump that far.

Plus, there's a leaf in her face. They're falling from the trees nearby and keep catching on her.

Damn… where's Ace when you need him?

'Chuck, this is really NOT feeling cool right now!' she yells. 'Get me down!'

She really doesn't look… right, hanging up there. I mean, she's I Sparx /I . It's completely… weird, seeing her hanging off a roof.

Shame the ivy on the walls must be all weak and brittle at this time of year, or she could've gotten down using that.

'Um… okay I… I'm thinking, Sparx, don't worry, I'll get you down.'

'Well, make it quick, Chuck.'

She can probably see him adjusting his glasses even from all the way up there. 'Look I… just… try letting go.'

Blink, blink. 'What?'

'Just… let go, and I'll catch you.'

'…Oh, _Zoar_…'

Yeah, he figured she'd say something like that.

'I'm serious, dude. Jump.'

'Chuck, you can NOT catch me, I'll… probably flatten you!'

'Who, me? Nah I… I took some karate lessons last week.'

'You took some… what the White-Hot Oblivion is THAT gonna do?' she struggles, her grips keeps slipping.

'You know, I know how to… keep my balance and stuff. I even had that wheat grass stuff this morning. See? Arms of steel. Just trust me, I won't let you fall.'

Yeah. _Real_ smooth, Chuckinator.

'Uh… I don't think you have any choice there, Chuck…' she's wincing. Her arms must be really hurting by now. She can't stay up there.

He braces himself and holds out his arms.

'Look, I'm gonna count to three, then you let go, got me?'

'…DON'T drop me, Chuckdude.'

'I won't.'

'Promise?'

Is it just him, or does she sound… nervous? What about? It's not like she's never fallen before. And there's not always someone to catch her.

'I promise. One. Two…'

'Three!'

The next thing he knows he's on his back in a pile of noisy brown and orange leaves, trying to catch his breath –which is hard, since a certain someone has practically squashed all the air out of his lungs. A red head with a leaf in her hair and who's most definitely NOT a human stares down at him, grinning.

'…Well, you didn't drop me. I'm impressed, kid. But I'd ask for a refund on the karate.' She punches his shoulder lightly. 'Hey, that was fun! Can we do it again?'

'Ow…'

* * *

Red. 

Sparx kicked the chair, kicked the transformer, kicked the pile of scrap Random had left by the door, kicked the door and nearly kicked the Flash. She stopped herself there. She's not QUITE angry enough with him to do that. Yet.

'_Stupid Ace… stupid, _stupid_ Lightning Knight, who does he think he is?_

_Oh, yeah, that's right… He thinks he's a hero.'_

She sighs. She knows Ace is right, sort of. Well, if he really does think that, anyway.

It's hot outside the tower. Red-hot. She doesn't like the heat. It reminds her too much of that killer of a level she got stuck in a few cycles back, in White Hot Oblivion. And this place is getting dangerously close to that, these days. The sun never stops beating. The grass is scorched outside.

It was because of all the power-floes in the air, Ace had said to her. Apparently Random had told him that the excess energy that built up when the worlds collided had generated all this friction. Which meant static. Which meant heat. She doesn't bother with the science of it, all she knows is she hates it, and she doesn't know why Ace handles it so well.

It snowed here, once, a long time ago. Chuck had been in the doorway, catching it on his tongue, which had been kinda funny, especially considering the look on Mark's face when he tried the same thing. She can't taste, though, so it doesn't really matter.

No snow these days. She kind of misses it. And she knows Ace does too, though he doesn't want to admit it. He's sort of resigned himself to the fact that this is the world they've got now. They have to deal with it.

Yeah. He's dealing with it all right. And it's starting to freak her out.

Because running off to find the bad guys and kick butt in some way that's defiantly not in the rulebook? Yeah. That's supposed to be HER job.

Anyway, summer'll be over soon. Maybe then it'll cool off a bit. _'More ways than one, huh Ace?'_

* * *

Rules. 

'…Sorry.'

Ace had always tried to keep an eye on his sidekicks.

Course, some of them were easier to keep an eye on than others. Mark –you could usually rely on him to be in the place you asked him to wait, when you asked him to wait there. He'd done a couple of weird things. Like trying to "talk" to Random in the junkyard, and then there was that little incident with the amulet's power boost last year. (Which had… worried him, sort of, because he'd had no idea mortals losing coding LOOKED like that or that it was so much of a big deal.) But at least Mark usually followed his instruction.

But not always.

And that time, he just happened not to. Which has been a mistake. A big one.

And he's not where Ace told him to be then now, either. So Ace leaves, and flies somewhere else.

He's close enough, though. Sort of. Kat always says he is, anyway. Ace has no idea what she's talking about when she says that.

A couple of people watch him fly, but nobody says anything. This is his turf, and they're getting used to him now. They all are. Lightning Knights like him got a lot of attention, no doubting that. What was it Mark said once? That mortal girls like a guy in uniform? He's not sure what to think about that, even though he knows Mark was joking.

Anyway, there were conditions to it (_'Like the RULES, for example, Mark. Damnit, the rules you should've listened to.'_) Being a Knight meant you went where the amulet went, were followed there by evil and the battle repeated itself over and over again. Once, he hadn't minded that, but now he knew a different kind of life. A place are friends are friends because they like you, and not because of the program, and where you had different seasons –like this one, where the days were just starting to get longer than the nights, and the grass and walls weren't monotone. A place that…

A place that killed defenceless mortals because they didn't stick to the rules…

Hell.

Yes, there WAS that in it…

Speak of the devil…

He knows he's not really there, but these human emotions have a habit of playing tricks on him. It happens to Chuck and Kat a lot too. Sparx doesn't really understand it, but she will, one day. The mortal smiles at him, a few feet away.

'I didn't know you came here.'

"I was going to say that."

Dead silence for a moment.

"Why didn't you come before?"

Mark rolls his eyes. "I _did_, Ace. About a thousand times, but you never listened…' he pauses for a second, biting his lip. 'You're not going to quit, are you?

'I…'

'There's a war going on, Ace. You promised me you'd win.'

Why should he?

'You broke _your_ promise,' it sounds childish, he knows. He can't help it. Just blame the human emotions and get on with it.

'Come on, Ace, that's not fair. I said sorry. I didn't have a choice, you know that. You do.'

'…I know, I know.'

'So why are you making this one? _Do Right and Fear Not_, right?'

The Code?

Ace doesn't remember the time he stopped believing in that.

He doesn't give the memory an answer.

* * *


End file.
